Absorbent articles, such as disposable diapers, have included absorbent structures composed of conventional materials, such as creped wading, cellulosic wood pulp fluff, fibrous coform materials, superabsorbent particles, tissues and combinations thereof. For example, conventional absorbent structures have been composed of mixtures of superabsorbent polymer material and wood pulp fluff, and mixtures of superabsorbent particles in coform fibrous webs. Conventional absorbent structures, such as those described above, however, have not provided desired combinations of total absorbent capacity, dimensional stability, high strengths, ease of manufactures, and low cost. For example, creped wading and tissues have low basis weight, and require a large number of plies to produce a desired level of absorbent capacity and/or total basis weight. Non-fiberized wood pulp board has excessive density and stiffness, while fiberized, airlaid wood pulp fluff has low strength and low dimensional stability. Typically, an airlaid fluff web is reinforced with a supplemental carrier layer, such as tissue, to enable its movement through the manufacturing process for the assembled absorbent article. A highly densified web of airlaid wood pulp fluff can have excessive stiffness and can include undesirable hard spots. In addition, the fluff web has been dimensionally unstable and has tended to grow in thickness whenever the fluff web is unconstrained. Airlaid coform webs can be constructed with a combination of natural and synthetic fibers to increase the web strength. The inclusion of synthetic fibers can, however, excessively raise the cost of the coform webs. Similarly, hydroentangled pulp webs typically require sufficient proportions of relatively long fibers, such as fibers of one-half inch (1.27 cm) or more in length, to generate the entangled web structures. The inclusion of the long fibers and the complexity of the hydroentangling process can excessively raise the cost of the formed fibrous webs.
As a result, there has been a continuing need for a low density, high strength fibrous web which can be produced low cost and can be suitable for use in selected articles, such as articles which may be absorbent and may be disposable. There has also been a continuing need for fibrous webs having desired parameters of high basis weight and low stiffness for use in the selected articles.